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Having software that you have sold as a permanent license running on devices controlled by a third-party is just asking for permanent support issues. How often

Having software that you have sold as a permanent license running on devices controlled by a third-party is just asking for permanent support issues. How often do we see apps abandoned that can't justify the software development to keep up with OS updates? If you are a company with a "consumer-friendly" image to uphold, releasing a one-time-purchase game on someone else's system in the modern era amounts to assuming an indefinite liability for limited revenue.

asdff 4y ago
It happens plenty of times. There are some old Monster Hunter games for example that don't run past ios 14 or so. Plenty of the "big" games from the first years of the app store no longer functionally exist today. Chances are if you can see that your population is declining you can just abandon the game. It sucks, but abandonment is nothing new for gamers and publishers, and like in an abusive relationship they buy the next game in the IP reliably.
thrashh 4y ago
I don’t think the problem is that it’s a third party. People develop for third-party systems like the PS4 all the time and it’s fine. And old software works on Windows pretty well. Rather, Apple and Google don’t value backwards compatibility that much. So you just have to know what are the priorities of the platforms and software that you use.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >And old software works on Windows pretty well. Rather, Apple and Google don’t value backwards compatibility that much. You have it backwards: Microsoft values backwards compatibility in Windows so much it's eccentric. Game consoles are a hit or miss whether they implement any form of backwards compatibility with previous hardware, and the concept of backwards compatibility in the world of personal computing in anything other than Windows flat out does not exist. We (as in common and power users) are very, very fortunate Microsoft cares about Windows backwards compatibility so much, but by no means is such an attitude the industry norm. The industry norm is: Code fast and break shit, maybe fix later.
  - vlovich123 4y ago
    Microsoft has often also been held back on improving APIs because they are so committed to backward compat.
- musicale 4y ago
  > Apple and Google don’t value backwards compatibility that much I'm incredibly disappointed that something like 40% of the many apps and games I've purchased for iOS no longer work. The 32-bit apocalypse was terrible, but Apple's contempt for ABI stability and backward compatibility in general (resulting in an ongoing compatibility maintenance burden for developers, just to keep their app running on newer iOS versions) damages the app and game experience on iOS. Apple's approach makes it impossible to build a game library the way one can on other systems without keeping a collection of devices that run the appropriate OS versions and have the game installed (since it may be removed from the app store.) This is very different from, say, Nintendo DS games(2004-2020) or PS1 games (1994-2017.) Or PC games on Windows and Steam. It's a disappointing tradeoff, because better backward compatibility would have massive, multiplicative benefit to iOS users and developers.
FpUser 4y ago
You can run 20 years old Windows game on Win 11. Phone is a different story of course.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  Yes, I should have been clear that Windows (and presumably some Linux flavors, with some effort) are the exceptions here. Phone OS's and MacOS, however, consistently show complete disregard for software of any reasonable age.

asdff 4y ago

It happens plenty of times. There are some old Monster Hunter games for example that don't run past ios 14 or so. Plenty of the "big" games from the first years of the app store no longer functionally exist today. Chances are if you can see that your population is declining you can just abandon the game. It sucks, but abandonment is nothing new for gamers and publishers, and like in an abusive relationship they buy the next game in the IP reliably.

thrashh 4y ago

I don’t think the problem is that it’s a third party. People develop for third-party systems like the PS4 all the time and it’s fine. And old software works on Windows pretty well. Rather, Apple and Google don’t value backwards compatibility that much. So you just have to know what are the priorities of the platforms and software that you use.

Dalewyn 4y ago
>And old software works on Windows pretty well. Rather, Apple and Google don’t value backwards compatibility that much. You have it backwards: Microsoft values backwards compatibility in Windows so much it's eccentric. Game consoles are a hit or miss whether they implement any form of backwards compatibility with previous hardware, and the concept of backwards compatibility in the world of personal computing in anything other than Windows flat out does not exist. We (as in common and power users) are very, very fortunate Microsoft cares about Windows backwards compatibility so much, but by no means is such an attitude the industry norm. The industry norm is: Code fast and break shit, maybe fix later.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  Microsoft has often also been held back on improving APIs because they are so committed to backward compat.
musicale 4y ago
> Apple and Google don’t value backwards compatibility that much I'm incredibly disappointed that something like 40% of the many apps and games I've purchased for iOS no longer work. The 32-bit apocalypse was terrible, but Apple's contempt for ABI stability and backward compatibility in general (resulting in an ongoing compatibility maintenance burden for developers, just to keep their app running on newer iOS versions) damages the app and game experience on iOS. Apple's approach makes it impossible to build a game library the way one can on other systems without keeping a collection of devices that run the appropriate OS versions and have the game installed (since it may be removed from the app store.) This is very different from, say, Nintendo DS games(2004-2020) or PS1 games (1994-2017.) Or PC games on Windows and Steam. It's a disappointing tradeoff, because better backward compatibility would have massive, multiplicative benefit to iOS users and developers.

FpUser 4y ago

You can run 20 years old Windows game on Win 11. Phone is a different story of course.

InitialLastName 4y ago
Yes, I should have been clear that Windows (and presumably some Linux flavors, with some effort) are the exceptions here. Phone OS's and MacOS, however, consistently show complete disregard for software of any reasonable age.